


You can be Lonely in the Company of Others, You Know

by ElsieMcClay



Series: Voltron Fics [20]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Insecure Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 21:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12639564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElsieMcClay/pseuds/ElsieMcClay
Summary: Lance is lonely and sick.





	You can be Lonely in the Company of Others, You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a self-projecting fic on tumblr :)

Lance was tired. He was so, so tired. But did school care that he was tired? Did his teachers care if he was doing homework for four hours at least once a week at this point? Did anyone care? He’s sure his friends don’t. They don’t get the same pile of homework and tests that he does. His parents think this pile of assignments is preparing him for the real world and college and such, but honestly? When is he ever going to use half of this crap? 

Never. The answer is never. 

He’s been staying up late, which isn’t helping, but he’s staying up for a reason. He has to do something to keep himself sane, and his answer is his art. He stays up until midnight, his pencil scratching at the paper, and all of his worries and stresses being chipped away with every stroke. Then, he falls asleep, and when he wakes up, Lance starts it all over again. It’s miserable, but he guesses he’ll have to just deal with it all. 

Lance has noticed the decline in the strength of his immune system. Last year, he hardly got sick, maybe once or twice through the year, only missing two days. Once because of his part in the school play and the other because he had been sick, but this year? This year, he’d already missed twice that many days, and he knew he’d probably get sick again at some point. 

He wasn’t looking forward to missing any days. He got sick, went home with a migraine, on the second day of school. When he came back, he had an entire essay to make up on the second day of school. What kind of teacher gives homework on the second day of school? Of course, it was much worse the other few days he missed. He’d had tests, quizzes, homework, and notes to make up, and most of his teachers refused to outright tell him what he missed.

“Ask your friends,” they’d told him without looking up from their computer screens. He wanted to say ‘what friends? All of mine aren’t in any of these stupid classes.’ Because it was true. He had no friends in his classes. Pidge was in a lot of college-level classes, probably, and Hunk had pretty much the opposite schedule as he did. He was alone. Except for Keith, but Lance was sure that Keith didn’t like him very much, and he’s 99% sure Keith hates his guts. He didn’t want Keith to hate his guts. He had enough gut-hating with Rolo and Nyma making fun of him every step he takes. As if he didn’t feel crappy enough, he’s afraid to go into most of his classrooms to ask for help from teachers or get good grades on a test or even have one little hair out of place because he knows, either way, he’ll be made fun of. He doesn’t want that, so he just stops talking. At home, at school. He starts drawing more and staying up even later and later until he’s hardly sleeping at all. 

Lance is tired, but it’s not the kind of tired that sleep can cure anymore. It’s the kind of tired that settles deep within your bones and just won’t go away no matter what you do. It’s the uncomfortable tired that clings to every muscle and bone and nerve until you feel like you just can’t move, but you know you have to, so you do. You keep moving even though it hurts. It hurts so badly, but no one cares because everyone gets tired like that, and they live through it. They persevered. Why can’t he? Why does he feel like he can’t persevere? Why is he weak? 

Lance wipes his face furiously. Stop /crying/. Seriously, you just asked yourself why you’re weak, and you’re crying. He huffs and wipes his face on the back of his hand again. It’s nearly midnight, and he’s drawing, only about halfway through the construction lines. He sighs and rubs his tired eyes knowing he’ll have to cover up the stress acne and dark circles in the morning. He groans miserably, but he can’t find it in himself to go to sleep. He has a huge paper due date looming above him, but he can’t write it because his idiotic teacher hasn’t told them what to write. As the due date grows closer, his anxiety over it grows. What if he can’t write a good paper before it’s due because his teacher didn’t tell his class what to write? What if he fails and he can’t do anything to help it? He can do something. He /has/ to do something to prevent that.

But, he doesn’t want Rolo to make fun of him. He always brushes it off, but really, on the inside, it bothers him. It bothers him that he has to know that someone hates him for being smart, which is dumb. He wants to be smart. He wants to go to college and make a name for himself, but he doesn’t want to be teased for it.

Then, there’s Nyma. She’s in every single one of his classes save for study hall, health, and gym. He hates it. Nyma points out when his face is a little red from gym or he changes something and she just keeps commenting on it, and Lance just wants it to stop. 

He was so lonely, he thinks he’s going insane. The play helps, but it also doesn’t help at all because Lance has even less time to do the loads of homework in his backpack, and he has to carry around his binders and books, and his bag probably weighs a tenth of his body weight. It’s ridiculous and probably illegal. Yet, he carries his books and binders home and does his homework. He never forgets.

He looks at his grades with disdain, though. He’s unhappy, and Lance’s expectations are honestly way too high. No matter how many times his mother and teachers tell him he doesn’t have to be perfect because no one is, he never lowers his expectations. Lance never finds himself able to do so. 

Lance was bound to get sick again. Wait, he said that already. Crap. What’s happening? What’s he saying? Gosh, he’s a mess. His mind is all jumbled and it won’t work, and it’s giving him a headache. 

Okay, so, here’s the thing. He knows that you’re not supposed to come to school with a temperature over 102, but honestly, his mom’s the one that usually tells him he looks sick and should stay home, but she didn’t say anything, so he must be fine. He must be. He feels fine other than a small headache and the normal tiredness. He feels colder than normal, but it’s nearly fall, so it’s not like it’s that alarming to be cold when it’s cold outside.

So, Lance ignores the persistent shivering and aching of his limbs and goes to school. Thing is, he forgot there was a meaningless assembly scheduled for today, and he’s not sure of he can get through half the day in a room filled with 1,000 teenagers. Lance takes in a deep breath through his nose in an attempt to do two things. One, calm himself down, and two, calm the nausea running rampant through his gut. It’s too much, it’s all too much. 

Lance holds himself, shivering miserably. The girls sitting next to him had scooted away, and they keep giving him weird, grossed out looks. Lance just glares at them half-heartedly. 

He really wishes he had someone to hug. Lance is really lonely, okay? He wants to hold someone or be held by someone, but Pidge says it’s weird, and Hunk is always busy when Lance is free and Lance is busy when Hunk is free, and Lance doesn’t have any other friends he’s comfortable hugging. He almost always falls asleep with an uncomfortable ball of loneliness in his chest. 

Lance massages his temples and winces as the microphone screeches. The auditorium goes silent, but his head still pounds like a million lions are roaring in his ear. It hurts so bad, and he’s so tired, and Lance just really wants to go home and sleep for the rest of his life. But he can’t, so he suffers in silence. 

Until he finds himself standing up and running out of the room with everyone watching. He has his hand clamped tight over his mouth, and his other arm is wrapped around his middle. The hallways seem to stretch for longer than they usually do, and the bathroom seems impossibly far away, but he makes it. Lance’s knees protest when he drops onto the gross tile of the bathroom, but he sticks his head into the bowl and throws up his breakfast. There’s sweat rolling down his face and neck and arms, but he’s so, so cold, and everything hurts and Lance just really wants a hug right now, okay?

Lance’s body pushes him forward into the toilet as another round of vomit passes through him, and he groans, tears running down his face right there along with the sweat. It’s disgusting. 

He jumps and turns his face around to look as two, cold hands touch his neck and back. He finds Keith staring down at him with his eyebrows pulled together. He rubs Lance’s back as Hunk comes to stand behind him, and Lance turns back around to dry-heave into the toilet. 

“Keith,” Lance groans when he’s done, voice cracking. He feels so gross, but he doesn’t have the energy to care. 

“Hey, bud,” Keith replies. He smooths Lance’s hair away from his sweaty forehead, wincing at the heat radiating off of his friend. 

“I d’un feel good,” he slurs, shivering harshly. Keith pulls Lance back, away from the toilet and onto his lap. He’s sprawled in the stall awkwardly, his legs bent at a weird angle. Hunk is fretting behind them, wetting paper towels and trying to calm Pidge down while also freaking out. Keith drags a partially-conscious Lance out into the open, away from the stall. He groans and whimpers, rolling his head to the side. 

“Sh, sh, sh,” Keith whispers, wiping his forehead again. “Guys, not to worry you, but I think Lance is dying.” Hunk makes a sound that sounds like a car engine failing, and Pidge pulls at her hair, pacing the bathroom. 

“Okay, Pidge, get the nurse and a thermometer, Hunk, go pull your car up, and I’ll carry Lance out when I can.” Both of them nod and leave, and Keith places wads of wet, brown paper towels around Lance’s body. Pidge returns with the nurse and a thermometer, and she sticks it in Lance’s mouth. The three of them wait anxiously until the thermometer beeps. 

“104.8,” Pidge reads, her eyes widening. 

Keith’s chest drops into his feet, and he swears. The nurse doesn’t tell him off for his vulgar language. Instead, she bolts out of the bathroom, probably to call an ambulance. Keith knows deep down that no ambulance would get to the school fast enough for his liking, so he scoops his tall, tan friend up into his arms and stands. It’s brutal on his thighs, but he manages to push through the burn of the added weight and carry Lance down the hall to the school entrance. He can hear Pidge’s footsteps echoing down the hall right behind him and Lance’s delirious mumbling and groaning. He’s shivering so badly that Keith can feel it in his arms. 

Hunk is there when Keith comes out the door, and he leans across the console to open the door, and Pidge throws the back door open and jumps into the front, letting Keith slide into the back. Hunk looks to Pidge as she closes her door, and she mutters out a “nearly 105 degrees”. The statement makes Hunk’s eyes widen in surprise, and he looks like he’s in shock, but a small groan of pain from Lance snaps him out of it. 

Hunk can drive really fast really well, Keith finds. He can maneuver the streets like a pro, and he would be marveling at Hunk’s driving if Lance wasn’t having a seizure in his lap. One moment, he’d just been shivering and sweating and mumbling, and the next his eyes were rolling back in his head and he was seizing. Pidge started swearing, and Hunk nearly crashed, but he pulled himself together and started gripping the wheel so hard that the tan skin around his knuckles was nearly as pale as Lance’s ghostly pale face. He presses his foot onto the gas pedal even more, and Keith struggles to make sure Lance doesn’t hurt himself. 

Finally, Lance passes out and stops seizing, and Hunk pulls into the emergency room entrance. Keith drags Lance out of the backseat, moving before the car even fully stops. 

Hunk helps him carry Lance before going back to park the car in the relatively full parking lot. When they get back, Keith is pacing the waiting room and biting his nail. Hunk falls into a seat and rests his head in his hand, and Pidge leans against him. 

“Why didn’t we realize?” Pidge mumbles after about half an hour of sitting there. Keith looks up at her from his pacing and blank stare.

“Because Lance is getting really good at hiding things,” he tells her. “He hides a lot from everyone, even his parents, but I can see it. Most of the time. I couldn’t see this. I could’ve prevented it.” A tear drops from Keith’s eye and drops onto his cheekbone. He wipes it away and blinks furiously. 

One time when he was really little before his mom left, he got really sick like Lance is. He doesn’t quite remember how much it hurts, but he remembers that it does–it hurts more than anything he’s ever had to go through. And Lance is alone other than strangers and doctors, and that makes it so much worse. All that Keith wants is to go into that room and make Lance feel at least a little better by being there for him.

Keith sees how hard of a time Lance has been having, but he just doesn’t know how to tell Lance that he’s here for him. He’ll listen, and he’ll understand. Keith sees the sad looks after Rolo and Nyma talk to him, the way he sinks into himself after some stupid comment they make, and the way his face is a little too dark in some spots. It’s all stuff that only Keith would notice or pay attention to, but it’s important to him.

“Keith, you can’t prevent it. Or couldn’t’ve, I guess.” Before Keith can respond, a nurse enters and looks up from her clipboard, calling out “Lance McClain?” Hunk and Pidge stand up, and Keith steps forward.

“That’s us,” he tells her, and she turns and walks away. The three of them follow, and she leads them to a room that looks like all the other ones. She held the door open for the three of them and shut it behind them. 

“Oh, Lance,” hunk mutters as he takes in the sight of his friend, pale as ever with wires connected to his arms. Keith steps forward and hovers at the side of the bed, unsure of how to go along with this. He’s not close to Lance at all, he’s already pointed that out. He’s not totally sure why he followed Lance out of the gym, but he did, and he found him in the bathroom, puking up his guts and sweating and shaking and miserable. 

“Keith,” Lance breathes a moment later, his voice hoarse and cracking. Keith’s eyes widen in surprise. Why would Lance care if Keith was here, say his name first when his two closest friends were right there? 

“I’m here, don’t worry.” Lance smiles up at him, and even in his sweaty, pale, and sickly state, Keith can’t help but think that Lance is a blessing to this Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr at elsiemcclay!!!


End file.
